


Lure

by eurusholmmes



Series: Remember The Garden (Alt. Endings) [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, CT-6116 | Kix is a Good Bro, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Force-Sensitive CT-6116 | Kix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29393121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurusholmmes/pseuds/eurusholmmes
Summary: If Kix wants to crack open her chest and find the heart of Bo-Katan Kryze, he will have to use unconventional methods.Or in this case, an old weapon that acts as a musical instrument that reminds her far too much of home.
Relationships: Bo-Katan Kryze & CT-6116 | Kix
Series: Remember The Garden (Alt. Endings) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159190
Kudos: 3





	Lure

**Author's Note:**

> This can technically be considered like a stand alone chapter for Remember The Garden because it does follow the canon of Kix's time in cryo-stasis. He's just woken up way earlier then in the novel for it. Enjoy!

The first thing Bo-Katan noticed is that there was music echoing throughout the too large and far too empty halls of her Star Destroyer. Koska and Axe had gone off to destroy an Imperial base - without her, which she was very offended by - and Ahsoka had been avoiding her at all costs today.

Which meant the only friend she had on board was a clone who shouldn’t have even been alive to begin with. Kix. Ahsoka’s brother, the one she’d risk anything for.

Bo-Katan Kryze grew up hating clones, their very existence.

And now she’s friends with one.

Kix should have never been able to have been found on Dooku’s crashed ship. Ahsoka had gotten whisper of a clone making his rounds around the galaxy after a brutal fight with cryo-sickness.. a ghost pulled straight out of time called _Atlas_.. and when she’d told Bo that it wasn’t Fett, they both had to see it for themselves.

That was the first time she’d seen Ahsoka cry — watching that ex-Jedi rush across a field to envelop her brother, sobbing as she does so and they fall to their knees in surrender to each other’s presence.

The Force sings with praise that day. Kix has family again. He’s no longer alone.

Ahsoka no longer has to carry the guilt of her failure alone anymore — Kix can and will share it with her. Not because he has to, but because he loves his little sister.

_He’s my brother, Bo. Nothing can happen to him.. I’ve already lost too much.”_

Kix has lost consequentially everything he has ever known and everyone he has ever loved — that had turned him colder then his previous version, the medic and padawan from The Clone War, but there’s still so much compassion in him for someone who barely has the remains of his heart left. They all were taken away with Order 66. With the deaths of his brothers.

Of Jesse.

Bo-Katan’s feet lead her to the observation room. Inside she can hear the familiar lure of a bes’bev - both beautiful and equally as deadly - and she peers inside to look upon the clone she’s taken to calling _vod_.

Her father would be _so_ disappointed in her.

Bo follows the sound into the room, where she stands at the doorway, silently watching Kix play. He’s marvelous with an instrument. Music is written into the very fabric of his soul. It’s how he helps, how he heals.

It’s unfortunate she has an open wound that’s long been in need of a medic’s capable touch.

Kix isn't even aware she's there. It's been a long time since he's allowed himself to feel the lure of music - before Order 66... and he loses himself in the familiar melody as his fingers flutter against the bes'bev. His thoughts are no longer occupied by Ahsoka and her memories of the Tomb of the 332nd he’d taken to spare her pain.

Bo-Katan doesn’t quite know how to feel at the sound of the instrument. The music brings her back to Mandalore, her training, the final battle during the purge before everyone was killed. It’s comforting and distressing all at once. She’s glad she has her helmet on.

It’s a trademark of the Mandalorians to use their helmets as a mask: It’s how they hide. It’s fortunate Bo-Katan Kryze is so good at hiding.

Kix doesn’t realize she’s standing there until we’ll after the song is over. He turns around to face her, eyes soft but wide, fingers still pressed against the keys. It’s silent as space passes outside of their window. Ever the beautiful.

Bo-Katan is so lost in memory that it takes her a moment to realize it’s silent. The melody has stopped.

“That was nice.” She murmurs.

“Did you know that song?”

“I do.”

She has taught him more about the Mando’a culture in less then a month then Kix has learned in his entire life. He’s grateful for it. It’ll probably be the closest Kix ever comes to his roots. To home.

“I’m sorry,” He replies mournfully. “I didn’t think anyone would know it. It’s.. beautiful.”

“We used to play that after battle to calm us down. That instrument was often carried during battle as well.”

With being a medic, Kix is always willing to learn. He absorbs information twice as fast as natborns, and there’s just something about the endless amount of information pertaining to Mandalore that Bo can give him that makes him want to learn more.

“So..” Kix falters, pausing for a moment. “Beautiful but lethal. Hm.” His eyes flicker upward to meet her face through her visor. She’s wearing her helmet. “You can sit if you want. I’ll play it again.”

Bo-Katan realizes she really can’t help herself when she sits beside him. Despite how much she hates that she’s drawn to Kix’s comforting nature, she also hasn’t heard the Mandalorian instrument in decades. It brings her an equal amount of sadness and joy when memories of home begin to flash behind her eyes.

Beside her, Kix angles his body toward her and bends his head to begin playing it again. He keeps a close eye on her body language, particularly her hands, trying to gauge a reaction of sorts seeing as how he cannot see through her helmet.

Bo-Katan’s hands are clenched on her lap. Underneath the helmet, she’s humming along to the song very quietly.

_Let me see you. Stop hiding._

His eyes soften naturally at her more vulnerable state. He can’t _see her, per say,_ but he can feel her sadness through the Force. Bo-Katan reminds him a lot of his brothers, and that’s terrifying.

Kix wants to comfort her. He can’t.

As the song ends, he holds his breath and waits to see if she’ll speak.

In an incredibly rare moment of exposing her aching heart, Bo-Katan leans her head down and takes her helmet off so she can very quickly wipe away her tears. Her eyes are still slightly red.

She’s spent her entire life hating Jedi. _Despising_ clones. Thriving on how many she killed - and now she’s gone and bared her soul to the very contradiction of all she knows to be true.

“Just miss them.”

Kix lowers his hands. “Me too, Bo. Me too.” He turns behind him to reach for the box of tissues on the table and curls a little bit closer. He wonders then if Ahsoka has ever seen this.

Her.

Vulnerable.

 _“If my father could see me now,_ ” She begins. “He would be so disappointed. I wish I had died in that battle, sometimes. Now there’s nothing left.. and I’m just a failure.”She growls low in her throat as another wave of tears burn her eyes. Bo-Katan tries to wipe them away.

“Bo-Katan..” Kix falters. He can’t help it - being inclined to touch his entire life - so he lays a tentative hand on her boot and offers her another tissue. His heart aches at the realization that he definitely understands this.

Bo-Katan takes it reluctantly as she wipes at her face. Emotion has been a weakness - _a disease to be eradicated -_ since she was a child. And the stupid bes’bev had unlocked decades worth of memories she’d rather forget.

 _“_ Kriffing bes’bev…”

 _“_ Vod, you don’t have to be so humiliated for being open with me. I really appreciate the fact you feel safe enough to do so.” Kix pauses. “That instrument has helped me quite a bit.. brings me a lot of ease as someone who used music to cope during The Clone Wars. Thank you for helping me find it.”

_It’s strange.. how two tortured, traumatized souls can so often bring the best out of each other._

“It’s grounding. Or it’s supposed to be. Seems like it does the opposite for me.”

Kix runs his thumb over the metal of her boot. “You haven’t mentioned your father before. Not a pleasant memory?”

Bo-Katan finds herself spilling far more to him then she should. He’s the only person who seems to see her as _herself,_ not as Mand’alor and not as Lady Kryze… just her. It’s still strange. “He wanted me to be the best that I could. My oldest sister was supposed to lead Clan Kryze, and then she died. Then it was supposed to be Satine, and she never wanted to fight. So it was me. There was this… almost this expectation I would just _fail.”_

“From your father?” Kix asks. “Or from you?” He hums a less familiar song under his breath, eyes trained on her face as he waits.

“From him. From all of them.” Her face is a carefully practiced art of static and stone expression. She’s hiding. “I had everything.. for a moment. And then it was gone.”

The last thing Kix remembers before going into cryo is Anaxes. Echo had been promoted to Corporal and they’d been so _kriffing proud_ that they’d gotten drunk… and he ended up remembering what Fives had said about their control chips, and then he’d gotten kidnapped.

Kix was always cold before cryo, but that was just his physical sense. Now.. now his soul is cold too.

"Me too, Bo. Me too. All I remember is the cold and being alone.”

“I escaped on a shuttle. Koska and Axe and I. I watched from space as the surface of my planet was covered in fire.” Judging by the look on her face, Kix can tell that Bo-Katan relives that failure every waking moment that she doesn’t have Mandalore in reach.

“You didn’t have a choice. It was either you fled, or you died.”

“Maybe I should’ve.”

“Would that be better? Because you’d be with your people?”

Kix has learned so much about Mandalorian culture in such a short time, but he would’ve never guessed that _she_ of all people believed in the equivalent to Heaven. “Yes.” Bo-Katan replied. “In Manda.”

“I know you keep telling me you’re the last of your aliit, and I won’t fight you on that because I know there’s no changing your mind, but you aren’t _alone_ Bo-Katan. I get survivors guilt. You always wonder if it should’ve been you, if the world would be better without you in it.”

Normally Bo-Katan prides herself on her ability to keep herself so composed. This time, however, she closes her eyes again in an attempt to poorly hold back her emotions.

“It’s unattainable. Isn’t it?” She asks, voice barely audible. Almost as if she's afraid to do so. 

“Is what?”

“My planet.”

Kix very slowly takes her clenched hand and uncurls her fingers, gentle in his touch, wondering if she’ll actually take his hand. Bo-Katan is usually very averse to touch, just like Fives was.

“Where did this come from?” He asks. “Really? You’ve been fighting so hard to get back Mandalore.”

She opens her eyes enough to stare at her hand. She doesn’t move it, but Bo’s fingers tremble ever so slightly.

“It’s all I have left to fight for.” She confessed. “What else can I do?”

Kix takes the trembling fingers as a sign to very loosely link their fingers, slowly enough that she can pull away if she wants to before allowing his eyes to soften so he can look at her freely. “You’ve been trying to get your home back for so long that you don’t really know who you’d be without that. If you weren’t fighting for Mandalore.. for a throne.. who would you be? That’s the big question. One I’ve been asking myself for a while.”

She takes several moments to think about that. Bo-Katan’s hand is still in his own.

“I don’t know.” She replies. “I can’t imagine a life other then this. I don’t know what I would do.”

“You’e a fighter. It’s in your blood.” Kix pauses. “I don’t foresee you as the type to settle down either. You have the skills to be a leader, which is why despite my obvious problem with your pride, I still think you can get your planet back. I’ll do all I can to help you.”

Bo pulls her hand away at that remark.

“If you tell Ahsoka you saw me cry, I’ll kill you.”

Of all the people to come across the path of Bo-Katan Kryze, Kix may be the only one who has not once been afraid of her. He doesn’t look at her and feel fear. He looks at her and feels _burned._ She Is a fire… one that’s been burning bright for decades.

He won’t extinguish it.

“I wasn’t intending to. I am rather good at keeping things to myself, you know. Who is there to tell?”

She wipes at her face again. “Still,” Bo says. “I shouldn’t have dumped all of that on you. You have enough to deal with.”

“I really don’t. Not anymore.” Kix keeps his face carefully blank as he watches her. Most of his emotion shines through his eyes. “Since I took Ahsoka’s memories of the Tomb of the 332nd, I’ve felt rather okay. Nothing I haven’t done before. I was honestly waiting to see if you’d be vulnerable in front of her or I first.”

He’s still stunned it was him.

“I didn’t mean to be.”

“I tend to have that affect on people. Even the hardest ones to crack do eventually break at my feet.” Kix pauses to lift his eyes to hers. “It means you feel safe enough to do so with me.”

“Maybe.”

 _Let me in, Bo-Katan._ He pleads silently. _Let me help you._

“Or.. maybe I’ve just learned how to read you.”

She raises her brow at that. “Haven’t you known how to read me since the beginning though?” Bo-Katan asks.

“It was harder then - I didn’t know how to read you as well. It’s easier now because you feel safer, I don’t have to provoke you into talking anymore.” Kix says. “I think we’re both more similar then you realize. There’s shared suffering there.”

“I still don’t know why you even tried.”

_Because you deserve redemption._

“Why not?” He asks. “I enjoy a good challenge. Plus.. you are a good person. Or you have been to me since we met.”

“I haven’t been a good person to you. You’re a clone.”

“That doesn’t offend me anymore. _You_ have been a good person to me since I came here. You wouldn’t hurt me, and you made a considerable effort to show you care. That’s more then enough.”

Her brow pinches in confusion, and Kix can’t help but laugh at it. Her confusion to his compassion is oddly hilarious and endearing.

“I don’t understand you at all.” Bo says.

“You know, you could just ask. I’ll answer whatever you ask me.”

Much to his surprise, Bo-Katan immediately fires a question she’s obviously been thinking about. “You walked onto a ship to find a Mandalorian who killed thousands of your brothers, and hated you. You gave her a chance. _Why?_ ”

Kix takes a moment to think about this. “Because as I’ve told you _a thousand times now,_ everyone - regardless of their sins - deserves a second chance. Grace.. redemption.”

''You’re a good person Kix.”

“You haven’t met enough good people, Bo.” He manages a smile. “It’s unfortunate you befriended the one clone who used to defy everything he was told. If it was my life or my brothers lives, I’d choose them every time.”

She still seems interested in talking, so Kix brings his knees to his chest and rests his chin on top of them. “I sometimes wonder that if I had stayed a little bit longer.. whether or not Mandalore would still be there.”

Kix frowns. “What do you mean? If you had stayed while it burned?” Concern flashes in his eyes. “Or fought hard enough to ensure it hadn’t?”

“I left on a shuttle. We could have boarded one of the Imperial ships that was firing on the surface and taken it down from the inside.” She says.

“You’d probably be dead if you blasted an Imperial ship at the height of the Empire. Then you wouldn’t have anything you have now, wouldn’t have Ahsoka, or me. You’d be dead. The galaxy and Mandalore would be in ruin.”

“I could have done it. I can take down five Imps alone, and I had Koska and Axe. We could’ve taken a ship but instead we _ran._ ” She definitely sounds bitter. Angry.

“To save your own lives.” Kix reassures. “Fear is a part of being human.” Unable to again touch her, Kix plays with his hands in his lap as he talks. “You can’t outrun it.”

“ _A Mandalorian should not fear.”_

“It’s unfortunate then that you very obviously do.”

Bo-Katan snarls quietly at that statement. “If I’m to rule Mandalore, I can’t be weak. I can’t be seen as that. I have to be seen as unflappable.”

“So you can be weak in private and unflappable in the face of the public? Because you’re going to get overwhelmed ruling an entire planet.”

Kriff. It’s not like Kix _knows_ this stuff.

“I am not.” She argues. “I’ve done it before.”

“Yeah, that’s what someone with unrealistic expectations does. Tell me..” Kix replies, somewhat sarcastically. “How did that go for you?”

“It went fine. Until the Purge.”

“Mmmm. _Until the Purge._ Then you three were the last survivors.” He pauses. “Tell me.. do you still think you can be unflappable when you step foot back on Mandalore and get barraged with memory?”

“Yes.” She replies.

“I don’t believe you.” He snaps back. “If a _bes’bev_ reveals that bleeding heart of yours, I can’t imagine how it’ll feel to step back into a planet of ash.”

She stiffens at that. Kix isn’t usually this upfront, or this _cruel,_ but sometimes she needs to hear the truth from someone who is as stubborn as she is.

“It will be fine.” She says. Bo-Katan realizes then she’s not entirely convinced, and her stomach drops. “ _I_ will be fine.”

“Look at me in the eye and tell me that then.”

Bo-Katan usually doesn’t falter with direct eye contact. She looks him directly in the eye, but her gaze betrays doubt. Uncertainty.

“I will be fine.”

“Mmm.. There it is. Right there. _Doubt.”_

She snarls under her breath and curls her fists tighter. “Kriff you, Kix.” Bo snarls, eyes flickering away from him to focus on the window.

“You cannot step foot back on Mandalore until you come to terms with the fact you couldn’t do anything to save it.”

“So you.. what?” She pauses to turn and look at him. Green irises pierce his own - they remind him of the trees in the garden at the Jedi Temple - and _blaze._ She is fueled by her fire. “Want me to lie to myself?”

“Explain.” Kix asks. “Lie about what? How you feel?”

She doesn’t quite understand what it is about this clone Ahsoka loves so much that compels her to open up, to be weak, but the more Bo-Katan talks the more she finds she feels safe around him.

“I could’ve done more then I did.” Bo confesses. “I was fighting, I was doing fine. Then I lost the dark saber to Moff Gideon and panicked.” Her voice is strained. It’s clear that even after all this time it’s still a failure to her.

“Hm.” Kix stands to his feet and begins walking back and forth in front of the viewport. “Because you lost the one thing that would guarantee you gaining back Mandalore… and you thought, what do I do now? And then Djarin unintentionally got it instead.”

Ahsoka had told him that much.

“Yes.” Bo-Katan replies. “He doesn’t know how lucky he is. He has the last thing worth fighting for.”

“Has he done anything against you that would warrant him being an enemy?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Mmm. Okay. So that means you probably won’t fight him for it - because he has the ad’ika.” Grogu, who Ahsoka had also told him she couldn’t train because of his attachment to Din. Kix hadn’t met either of them, but he’d watched the unwiped security cams and had seen most of what had happened on this Star Destroyer that day.

“I have to fight him. It’s the only way.”

_So stuck in tradition._

“Doesn’t that usually end in death?”

“Usually.”

“You are honestly going to fight a man who only wants to be a father to his children? You kill him and Grogu is left fatherless. I don’t think you have it in you to make a child an orphan.”

Bo-Katan seems a bit put off by his insinuation.

“I won’t kill him, Kix.” She says.

Kix tilts his head. Like he’s studying her. “So you fight for the saber, but you spare him? So he can do whatever it was he originally wanted to do? He doesn’t want Mandalore.”

“He’s a Mandalorian. There are too few of us left to justify killing him.”

_Protecting what’s important to her. Her people._

"You know, I don’t think you’ve ever been told this before so I’m just going to tell you now before you punch me in the throat.” Kix sits down across from her against the window and lifts his eyes. As usual, there’s no deception in them. “Your father may not be proud of you for befriending a clone you’re now calling brother, but _I_ am proud of you, Kryze.”

Bo-Katan feels like the breath has been sucked right out of her. She can’t even remember the last time someone told her something like that. The last time someone affirmed her.

“Thank you Kix. That’s…”

“Really.” Kix murmurs. “Someone should tell you these things more.” His eyes soften as he watches her. “Because you can’t do _this_ without realizing there are people out there who care about you and are willing to do it with you. You’ve changed a lot. You see it, I see it. Ahsoka sees it. I’m _proud.”_

“Ahsoka doesn’t trust me, does she?”

This segues them into a totally different conversation he was rather hoping to avoid. Kix freezes at her words and swallows the knot in his throat.

“Why do you ask?” He queries.

Bo shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s a feeling.’’

“I think you need to talk to her about it. Do you think she has a legitimate reason to _not_ trust you? She loves you. That much I’m certain about.”

“I don’t _know,_ Kix!” Her voice is a little more desperate, a little more pleading. Like Bo-Katan isn’t actually sure Ahsoka Tano does care about her. “Maybe she does. I don’t know why.”

“I really shouldn’t be telling you this, vod.”

“Tell me what?”

Kix snorts sharply through his nose. “Your feeling is right. _You_ are right. I can’t tell you anything else besides that.. I don’t want to betray Ahsoka’s trust. She’s my ad’ika.” And his last string to his former life.

Bo-Katan’s heart sinks. So much for love.

“ _Oh._ ”

“I still don’t entirely understand myself.” Kix shouldn’t be able to feel the sharp sting of emotion so clearly from her in the force, but he does. “And I probably never will, bu I do trust you wholly. I don’t know if that means anything to you though.”

“It does.” Because Bo-Katan has so little left. She has her Night Owls, Ahsoka.. and now a clone. _Her_ brother, though she won’t tell him that yet. Kix has see more of her heart in so little time then most people she knows.

“I’m sorry.” Kix says as he kneels down in front of her despite his obvious shock. “I know how much her trust means to you.”

Wide green eyes lift to meet his own. “Do you think she’ll ever trust me?”

Kix scoots a little closer, back to the distance they were at whenever she first came in. “Can I ask you a question before I answer that?”

She reminds him so much of Fives. There are _so_ many similarities between the two, it’s almost like talking to his ghost. Just like he’d done after he woke up.

“Fine.”

“You seem to have an easier time being vulnerable in front of me then her. Why?”

“I’m not sure.” She replies.

“Me either.” Kix says. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.” He pauses. “Because I do genuinely believe you love her, but there’s something about being vulnerable in front of people you love that makes you uncomfortable. You have to protect them. Be strong. Unflappable.”

_And oh.. does he get that. That was his one strength with being Kenobi’s Padawan. He was so good at protecting what was his._

_“_ Yeah. Something like that.”

“Mmm… you know, if you can do this with _me,_ you can with Ahsoka. She wants to be there for you… to help in whatever way you’ll let her.”

Immediately, Bo shakes her head. Ahsoka knows a different her. A her she would like to maintain.

“I don’t want her to know I’m weak.” She whispers, small and frail. Bo-Katan hasn’t sounded so _young_ since she was training as a child.

“You’re not _weak,_ vod. You’re human.” Kix is dead set on drilling this point into her head. “Her and I aren’t different - minus the living part. We’re pretty much cut from the same cloth. Her experiences are just.. different.”

“But I’m not _like_ her. I’m Mandalorian.” Bo-Katan argues. “I’m supposed to lead my people.”

“If you want Ahsoka to trust you, Bo, you have to learn to be real with her like you’ve been with me. If you can be vulnerable in front of me.. you should be able to be the same with her. There’s no difference between us and how we approach you - she just loves you differently.”

Bo realizes then that he’s right. He’s proving to be right about a lot of stuff that she’s found herself _so_ unsure of. Her eyes lift to look at Kix - a clone, the contradiction to all she knows, a ghost pulled straight out of time - and she realizes then if she ever does get Mandalore back, she wants him to be there for it.

“Fine then.” She says quietly. “Okay. I’ll try.”

‘’That’s all you need to do. _Try._ If she gives you a hard time, I’ll talk to her.” He pauses. “Thank you for being real with me. I appreciate honesty.”

Didn’t really have a choice now did I? Not with that bes’bev.” Bo motions to the instrument gently laying on the floor. “It gets into your head.”

Kix shakes his head. “No.. it wasn’t just that.”

“Then what was it?”

“ Well, the fact that this is the fourth time you’ve done this now — on top of knowing I don’t repeat any of it and I keep your weaknesses safe from people who may exploit them.”

That makes her mad. He seems to do that a lot.

“ _You don’t need to be kept safe!”_

Kix’s brow furrows. “Me? I have nothing to do with it. I’m aware I’m outside the inner Kryze circle. I’m talking about Ahsoka.”

“I don’t need protection.” She snaps.

Oh. _Oh._ “So _she_ needs protecting, but you don’t! Interesting. Who’s been taking care of that bleeding thing you call a heart then? Who protects it?”

“I have.”

“Really? How’s that going?”

Bo waves a dismissive hand. “It’s fine.”

One of the things Kix has never been able to quite get over is people who lie to him. He didn’t do it during The Clone War, and he won’t do it now. “Mmmm. Okay.” He says. “So you don’t trust anyone enough to help protect it besides yourself, but yet you _still_ end up talking to me about what haunts you, and yet you claim you don’t care. How does it feel to be a walking contradiction?”

Bo shoots up. She’s practically bordering on fury.

“It _always_ comes back to this, doesn’t it! Insulting me!?” She exclaims, exhaling sharply as fiery green eyes meet his gaze. As per usual, Kix is very used to being on the receiving end of anger. Especially anger from someone like her.

Her anger is a fire. And when a fire burns that long, it _kills._

“It’s not insulting if it’s true, Bo-Katan.” Kix keeps his voice steady as his gaze focuses on the door. “You jut told me the other day you’ve been contemplating everything you have ever learned about clones to be wrong, and yet you find solace here _with me._ That’s contradiction.”

“Maybe I find comfort talking to you! Sometimes! _When it doesn’t hurt!_ ”

Oh. _Oh._ “Really?” Kix asks, clearly awed. “ _Why?_ You are aware I’d never intentionally hurt any of my vode right? Any of them? That’s not in me.”

Bo shakes her head. “It’s not you, Kix.” She says quietly. “It’s what we talk about.”

Trauma never gets any easier, no matter how much you prolong it.

“That will always hurt.” He replies. “No matter how much time passes. It’s a scar.. One that sticks. It doesn’t go away.”

 _“_ So there’s no point in trying to heal it.”

Kix holds a hand up. “It will heal.” He’s fairly confident on this. “Mine did, yours is still an open wound. You’ve never given yourself the time or the ability to rest and let it heal on its own.”

 _“_ I haven’t had time, Kix.” Bo says. “I’ve been busy.”

“You’re in an observation room with me right now.” He deadpans. “We aren’t doing anything of importance.”

“I can’t let my mind stray from getting back Mandalore.”

Kix slowly inhales and exhales in a futile attempt to keep his breathing even. “It doesn’t have to. You can still get Mandalore even if you let yourself feel it. That wound.”

_You have to let yourself feel it. Feel it.. or it’ll suffocate you._

As he expects, she hesitates.

“I’m afraid.”

“I was too. That’s why I wanted to go to the moon alone. I thought I needed to mourn my brothers who died there alone, but having someone there was better then being alone again for something so difficult to let myself feel. Grief is a powerful thing.” Kix lifts his eyes to meet hers. “You aren’t alone, Bo.”

"Aren’t I?”

“No. You aren’t.”

“My family is gone.”

Oh. _Oh._ Does that hit him hard. Ahsoka may have been the one to find him in the end, but the majority of his family outside of her is dead. All his brothers. Dead.

What a cruel, cruel world.

“So is mine.” He murmurs. “But you still have Ahsoka.” Kix hesitates on adding ‘me’ because in reality - he’s not sure if Bo-Katan wants to consider him something that may be exploited in the future if her enemies know she cares about a clone. “Koska.”

 _“_ I suppose I do.” Bo says. “Sometimes I feel like I’m still alone.”

If Kix looks hard enough, he can see Hardcase and Jesse in the corner. He’d felt the same way after waking up, but his brother’s ghosts - who are _always_ smiling and trying to beckon him home - are always there. “Yeah. I know how that feels.”

“I was the youngest of the Kryze sisters, so I knew eventually I would be the last one left. I just didn’t expect it to be like this.”

“No one ever expects how it feel when you lose everyone you love. That’s why you make your own families after your blood is gone. Family doesn’t just end in blood. It never did for me.. some of the best people I knew and loved weren’t my blood. Ahsoka isn’t my blood.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t miss them.” She argues. “Satine… she was sweet to me, when I was little. She was the first person to call me _Bo._ I miss that Satine.”

She spends the next ten minutes talking about her past. About a sister who is nothing more then a distant memory, about her feud with Satine, about how she wants to be remembered.

_"When we’re all gone, you will be the last of us. The last reminder to the galaxy that the clones existed, and you will honor our memory.”_

_“_ You know, when I get back Mandalore, you could be in my Council.”

His eyes snap open. “Wha?” Kix asks, clearly baffled. “You’re… you’re serious. _Really?_ ”

“Yes, I’m serious.” Bo replies. “You come from a Mandalorian donor. You seem dedicated to the culture, and you have sound judgement. It’s more than a fitting position for you.”

“Are you actually going to listen to me if I dare to contradict you? Or have a different opinion then you?”

“That’s another reason. You’re stubborn enough to put me in my place, Kix.”

Bo isn’t used to such unrestrained laughter. Her entire life has been cold and calculating and lethal, but Kix’s laughter at her confessing what he’s long since knew makes her a little bit lighter.

“Here’s my first piece of advice as your Council: Until you _feel_ your losses, you’re not going to be able to rule your people. Or what’s left of them.”

Bo-Katan bristles at that. “My head is perfectly clear.” She snaps back.

“Says the one still mourning her family.”

‘’Shut up.”

“I’m _right_ about this,” Kix argues. “You will be a better rule once you feel this and consider what you want Clan Kryze’s legacy to be - if you want to live out their memory through the way you rule your people.”

“ _I can feel later!”_

This is familiar. This raw, unfelt grief is something he’d dealt with after being woken from a cryo-sleep that should’ve been much, much longer. “How much later, Bo-Katan?” Kix asks seriously. “It’s been decades. How late is _too late?_ ”

“I don’t know!” She exclaims.

“It took me the same amount of time to mourn millions of brothers, half of which I didn't even know. But my head is clearer, my mind is more peaceful. It's not as painful anymore now that I've accepted it - and remembered what they asked me to do. Honor them.”

“I do remember them.” Bo says softly. Her eyes dim just a little bit, as she is clearly remembering the better days of her clan. ““Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum...”

Oh. The Mandalorian remembrance vows.

“That’s not what I mean.” Kix replies. “My brothers told me from the time I found out I was force sensitive that I was going to be the last of us. The way I honor them? Is what I’m doing with you right now.”

“So how do I honor my family?” Bo asks. “Our clan was all over the place in what we were known for.”

Kix raises a brow. “You tell me.” He says. “What do you think they were most known for?”

“A Kryze is strong-willed, skilled, and can lead if she must.” Bo-Katan states confidently. 

“Then there you go. That’s how you honor them - that’s how you lead.”

Bo stares at him as if he should know that this is what she’s been doing the entire time anyway. It often doesn’t strike her that he’s only been awake for a few years, that he missed so much of what’s happened since the Empire rose.

Kix says it before he can stop himself. “I wish you’d let people help you, Bo-Katan. Because it’s pretty clear to me you want to change, you’re _willing_ to change, but you don’t know how.” He says, eyes cast out toward the stars. Despite the fear and terror her presence breeds in most people who don’t know her, Kix cannot find it in himself to fear a woman who’s practically a mirror of his brother(s).

“Isn’t that what I’m doing with you?” She asks.

“Letting other people help you carry your cross - your burdens, your losses - makes it easier to breathe. You're letting me help you on all grounds except that one. You won't let other people meet your demons head on.”

Bo shakes her head. She’s got decades worth of demons undealt with and a plethora of ghosts that cling to her shoulders and whisper in her ears about all her wrongdoings and failures. She will not burden Ahsoka with that.

“Ahsoka and I met after the Purge. I was.. angry. Shouted at her even though I had no reason to. If I think about things for too long, my head clouds and I become unreasonable.”

“What about Koska? She’s been with you for a while now. You’ve practically raised her.” Kix pauses before he lifts his head, daring to meet her gaze despite his pounding heart. “Or me?”

“Koska sees me as leadership. I cannot show her that I’m still hanging onto the past.”

Kix presents her with several more options. She denies each one, until he gets down to him.

“I’m more then willing to help you bear this. I’ve had worse.. and you deserve peace. I won’t tell them. _Any_ of them. You have my word.” It’s not just words, it’s a promise. One he intends to keep.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, vod.”

Kix settles himself back down in his spot and lifts the bes’bev. For a combat weapon, he’s oddly intrigued by the fact it’s both beautiful and lethal.Even more ironic given the person who had given it to him.

“Bye, vod.”

His heart clenches. Force, hearing Bo-Katan call him a term that he holds so dear to his heart is going to be difficult.

“I’ll be here if you need me.” He calls out. “Okay?”

Bo nods. “Yeah.” She murmurs. “Thank you.”

 _"Thank you,_ Bo-Katan.” The music continues, and Kix falls silent as he plays. He tries to ignore the single tear that falls down his cheek as she departs.

It may have been the bes’bev that caught her attention, but the beacon of compassion and light that is Kix’s soul is what lured her there.And well… maybe Bo-Katan - who has lived in a life of darkness and cold and _war_ her entire life - needs a little bit of light.


End file.
